Twitter storm of "historical memory activists" protesting the Iranian government

Users have launched a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #Khavaran_Historical_Memory to protest the destruction of the mass graves in Khavaran.

Twitter storm

On Tuesday, May 4, a Twitter storm began in protest of the actions of Islamic Republic officials regarding the destruction of the Khavaran mass graves.

Previously, images showing the destruction of mass graves in Khavaran had been posted on social media. This issue led to widespread protests by the families of those executed in the 1960s and the mass killings of the summer of 2018.

In this Twitter storm, the preparation of the Khavaran cemetery for the burial of fresh bodies has been seen as the Islamic Republic's new ploy to eliminate signs of the actions that Ayatollah Montazeri had referred to as the Islamic Republic's "greatest crime."

The Twitter campaign of "Historical Memory Destroyers" has been accompanied by a letter of protest from the families of those executed in the summer of 1988 in Iran. In addition, the children of the executed also issued a statement protesting the Islamic Republic's efforts to erase the traces of this "historical crime."

The families of those executed in the summer of 2018 had written to Tehran Mayor Pirouz Hanachi demanding accountability from Islamic Republic officials for the destruction of the Khavaran mass graves.

They asked, "With what purpose and intention and from the perspective of what belief and conviction was the order to carry out these actions?"

In this regard, the spokesperson for the Baha'i community of Iran at the UN office said that the Behesht-e-Zahra organization has prohibited Baha'i citizens from burying their loved ones in the special cemetery for this religious minority and has asked them to bury the deceased in a part of the Khavaran cemetery where the bodies of those executed in the 1960s are buried without names or marks.

The signatories of the statement by the children of those executed in the summer of 1988 declared that the Khavaran Cemetery is the "common history of all those eliminated and fighters for justice and freedom" in Iran.

Mansoureh Behkish is one of those who lost several family members during the executions of the summer of 2018.

Regarding the “Khavaran Historical Memory” Twitter campaign, he wrote, among other things: “Khavaran is the history of 40 years of resistance and perseverance of the mothers and families of Khavaran, searching for their lost ones, mourning, pouring dirt on their heads, screaming, moaning, clawing at the dirt, suffering, digging individual and mass graves, fainting, holding ceremonies, and remembering.”